Nicholson believes that the biggest hurdle for this or any government
to overcome is inertia. It has been too easy and very profitable for
corporate Canada to let American firms take all the risk when it
comes to innovation. Canadian managers have been quick to adapt and
co-opt successful American innovations.

After all, this low-innovation approach has worked out pretty well
for Canada. By objective measures such as per capita income, infant
mortality, home ownership levels, number of cars owned by its citizens,
number of Canadian Facebook users and so on — Canada has always been
relatively affluent.

And yet, despite that, a federal government is hanging its economic
and fiscal policy — and potentially its political future — on the
difficult-to-measure concept of innovation even though our
“low-innovation” approach, for a century or more, has been a crowd
favourite and resulted in one of the world’s highest standards of living
for its citizens.

All of which will change.

It's not enough to milk the Americans anymore and it certainly won't do to let poorly-skilled migrants flood in in hopes that they will pick up the industrial slack because Canadian snowflakes and their uninspiring teachers don't have the study and work ethic to move forward.

Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau defended his government's proposed legislation
to expand border preclearance at Canadian airports and other crossings
Wednesday as the opposition New Democrats pushed to stop the bill in its
tracks.

The
NDP argued the bill doesn't take into account what it called "the
climate of uncertainty at the border" created by the Trump
administration's recently adopted immigration policies.

But
Trudeau suggested it's better to be cleared for entry into the United
States while in Canada, because travellers are protected under the
Canadian charter of rights, as opposed to American laws.

Bill C-23, the Preclearance Act, came up for second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed border cooperation in a phone
call on Thursday as pressure mounted in Canada over rising numbers of
asylum seekers arriving from the United States.

The phone call, which followed a positive meeting between the
two leaders in Washington last week, also covered the softwood lumber
trade dispute, among other issues, Trudeau's office said in a statement.

The number of asylum seekers crossing into Canada at isolated
and unguarded border crossings has increased in recent weeks amid fears
that Trump will crack down on illegal immigrants, and photos of smiling
Canadian police greeting the migrants have gone viral.

The White House said Trump emphasized the importance of working
closely with Canada on cross-border issues, "including implementation
of his administration's actions to protect America from terrorist
attacks by foreign nationals and others."

A Liberal backbencher who introduced an anti-Islamophobia motion that
is expected to pass the Ontario legislature Thursday says, despite
all-party support, she has received racist backlash.

The motion
from Nathalie Des Rosiers calls on the legislature to “stand against all
forms of hatred, hostility, prejudice, racism and intolerance,” rebuke a
“growing tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiments” and condemn all
forms of Islamophobia.

This all sounds like a challenge to me, like Miss Des Rosiers wants a Mohammed-drawing contest.

For some reason, I cannot muster any concern for this. When I consider how important education is and how Christendom has influenced the West for the better, I just can't force myself to care about a bunch of pansified First Worlders who think that the world owes them a favour. I just can't:

For more than two months, Education Minister David Eggen has had a
copy of a report and recommendations from inquirer Dan Scott, whom Eggen
hired to investigate two Edmonton-area private schools.

“Yes, we are working with it, but it’s more complicated than we had
originally foreseen,” Eggen said Wednesday. “We want to make sure that
we are following the law, but also protecting families and individual
students in a safe and caring model.”

In August 2016, Pastor Brian Coldwell, chairperson of the Independent
Baptist Christian Education Society, said private schools Meadows
Baptist Academy and Harvest Baptist Academy would not allow gay-straight
alliances. Although his stance clashes with the Alberta Human Rights
Act and the School Act, Coldwell said the schools have a charter right
to freedom of religion.In response, Eggen demanded a written promise from Coldwell to comply
with laws unanimously approved by the legislature in 2015 that protect
gender identity and expression as grounds for protection from
discrimination, and compelling schools to help students organize a
support group for LGBTQ students when they ask for one.

The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday that the architects of the Obama
Presidential Center said the former president found an early concept
“too quiet” and speculated that the library could end up costing $1.5
billion.

An Arlington preschool teacher has been fired over a series of
anti-Semitic posts on social media, including a tweet that said “kill
some Jews.” Nancy Salem, who was fired from The Children's Courtyard, also retweeted: “How many Jews died in the Holocaust? Not enough!”

The United Nations estimates that about 200 million girls are missing
from the world due to this rampant genocide – now commonly called
“gendercide.” The effects of these heinous practices, as time goes on,
could be devastating in parts of Asia, as men look around and realize
that all their potential wives do not exist.

It’s A Girl takes a close look at gendercide, its roots, and its effects ...

Indonesia President Joko Widodo will
discuss the prospect of joint patrols with Australia in the South China
Sea when he meets his counterpart Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the
weekend.

Widodo told The Australian newspaper he would like to see joint
patrols with Australia, but only if did not further inflame tensions
with China.

"If there is no tension I think it's very important to have the
patrols together. We will discuss this with PM Turnbull," said Widodo.

Indonesia has traditionally taken a neutral position on the
South China Sea, acting as a buffer between China and fellow members of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that have the most at
stake, the Philippines and Vietnam.

But after China angered Indonesia by saying the two countries
had "overlapping claims" to waters close to Indonesia's Natuna Islands,
Jakarta staged large-scale exercise on the edge of South China Sea in
October.